Doctor Depos - first year out

[Kyung]

First a few things that are obvious but can be overlooked.

Doctor depos can be amazingly, mind-bogglingly difficult or really, really easy. It's the luck of the draw. If you get an easy one, figure the page rate is going to balance with the days the doctor has an accent so thick he might as well be speaking Klingon and no amount of money is going to compensate you.

That being said EVERYONE can take a doctor's depo. EVERYONE. Of course, the caveat is if the questioning attorney and the doctor are speaking clearly (enunciating), slowly, and not on top of each other, and opposing counsel is not interrupting the doctor and opposing counsel. In this situation, it doesn't matter how difficult the terminology you'll be able to stroke everything out and your software will do a wonderful job of turning those phonetic strokes into beautiful medical terminology.

Of course, this rarely happens.

Before getting the depo - ask the agency for the caption or a copy of another deposition in the case. You will be able to get the spelling of doctor's names and some of the medical words.

Get to depo early and set up (I know! This a must for all depos.) Ask attorney for caption if you did not receive one from agency. They'll probably givel you a request for document production or declaration of the deponent if you're going to an expert doctor. Gold mine!!! Quickly scan through for spellings and doctor's names.

If you have questions, about something the doctor said during the deposition, ask them!!! Don't be embarrassed and think it should be an easy word that most reporters who have taken medical depos will know what the word is and the attorney will think, oh, that reporter must not have taken a lot of medical depos. A word to the wise, some of these attorneys have taken so many medical depos, they probably know some of these words better than the doctors.

Pronunciation guide - Doctors like to put a special pronunciation on everyday words so that you are confused or it might be to make them sound smarter than they are.

centimeter - pronounced sontimeter by some physicians (God only knows why). Not at all helpful to us bec. usually the doctor is flying and you're writing phonetically and you've written "sont phaoe ter" before you realize he's saying centimeter.

hypo/hyper - can be sometimes figured out by context. If you have any question, you should clarify when he says it. He might have misspoken. It also makes it look like you're right on top of it.

voc rehab - vocational rehabilitation (The first time I heard this, I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for Volk Rehab or the name of some rehabilitation center before realizing they were talking about vocational rehabilitation.

P&S - sounds like PNS - It's not a syndrome. Most likely you're at a workers' comp depo and they're referring to permanent and stationary. When the patient is considered permanent and stationary and their medical situation is stable.

IME/AME/QME - Independent/Agreed/Qualified Medical examination/examination.

etiology/ideology (very similar sounding) - doctors are usually looking for the etiology (the cause of a disease) as opposed to the ideology (personal beliefs of the disease).

I'm sure there's a ton more. If I think of any, I'll add them. But if you think of any, feel free to add them. Remember, we all have words that may seem so obvious to us, but may boggle the mind of someone else, so share.

Always, always, always try to get a copy of any documents that the doctor reads from. Usually the attorney will attach the doctor's/expert's report to the transcript. If your agency provides you an electronic copy of exhibits, awesome. You're good to go. If they're voluminous, look them over quickly for words that you remember you weren't sure of - drug spellings, doctor's names, symptoms (claudication), etc. Then send them to the agency.

Sometimes the doctor will give you the original records. They will want you to make a copy and get the original sent back to the doctor's office ASAP. Or they won't want to release the records into the reporter's custody. They'll ask you to send out a service. When they say "send out a service", basically it means they want the reporter's agency to send out a copy service who will go into the doctor's office and copy the exhibits right there. If this happens, ask the agency to send you a set of the exhibits. Do not, do not think you are supposed to sit there and copy a ream of documents.

If they don't attach the report or records to the transcript, ask if you could look over the report real quick before you leave. The doctor might be kind enough to give you a copy.

Down and dirty about some of the stuff you might encounter a doctor depo and wouldn't know about until you've gone through it.

Good luck!!!

[Kyung]

It's just one of those things.

[LeAnne Law]

I always look up the doctor's specialty before heading out to a dr. depo. That way I can review briefs for that specialty before I get there.